Google Pixel ‘phone by Google’ Launched!

Here it is. The much-anticipated even for the year, Google’s smartphone launch commenced yesterday at San Fransisco. And, in-line with all the rumors, Google decided to ditch the famous Nexus lineup and their smartphones will now be called as ‘Pixel’ with a tagline- ‘phone by Google’. That being said, the Indian launch is scheduled for today and the pricing was also revealed for the Indian market. The Pixel smartphones will start at a price tag of Rs. 57,000 and will be available to pre-order from October 13.

Speaking about the specifications of both the smartphones, they differ only in terms of screen size and battery capacity. All the remaining specifications for both the smartphones remain same and they ship with the latest Android 7.1 Nougat.

The smaller variant will be called as the ‘Google Pixel’ and it comes with a 5-inch 1080p display with a curved 2.5D glass on top of it. Under the hood, there is a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 SoC, coupled with 4GB of RAM. And, the bigger variant- Pixel XL comes with a 5.5-inch Quad HD display and with the same Snapdragon 821 SoC and 4GB of RAM.

Both the smartphones feature a 12MP rear camera and Google claims that the camera on both the Pixel is rated as the top ones to be seen on any smartphone by DxOMark. That being said, we can expect a solid performance in terms of camera. Also, the Google camera app is also updated with support for manual controls and many other features.

In terms of software, the Pixel and Pixel XL comes with the Android 7.1 Nougat. It is worth noticing that these are the first smartphones to ship with Android Nougat. That being said, Google has added some customizations to the OS such as the Pixel launcher, glowing on-screen navigation bar to differentiate it with other OEM’s OS.

The Google Pixel XL comes with a bigger 3,450mAh battery, whereas the smaller Pixel comes with a just 2,770mAh battery. Having said that, they feature a fingerprint sensor on the back, which will be called as ‘Pixel Imprint’. Also, the smartphones have USB Type-C port, which as per company can charge the smartphones faster than previous generation Nexus phones.

At the event, Google also announced that both the smartphones will be supported with their ‘Daydream’ VR project and these are the first phone completely made by Google. As said earlier, the Indian pre-orders will start from October 13 with a starting price of Rs. 57,000.